


Dr Gaster: How I learned to love the endless abyss

by Hino



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: But they aren't important like pffft whatever, Gen, Just Gaster realizing the world sucks and he needs to chill in the endless abyss, Sans Alphys Asgore and Frisk get mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 05:28:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5572663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hino/pseuds/Hino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling into the core is not an ideal start to the day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dr Gaster: How I learned to love the endless abyss

**Author's Note:**

> This was a fic for the Secret Santa on tumblr, gifted to iemaki

Falling into the core isn’t an ideal way to start the day.

 

The result of being cast into the pure magic of your own creation is apparently being able to see everything above, below and between the stretching void of life. It took Gaster a moment to realize this, only truly sinking in when he noticed he was floating above the molten magic without feeling a thing.

“ **Oh,** ” he said, as if briefly inconvenienced by the sudden death and disintegration. “ **This is...** ”

Gaster met Sans’ gaze, watching as his apprentice stood on the edge, staring at where he was floating, as if he knew something was there, but couldn’t place it. “ **Concerning.** ”

  
  


It felt kind of awkward to hover there while the friend he’d kept as a work companion and a son, in some sense, cried and wept over his death.

Weird to call it a death, he noted after a moment.

It took some effort to float over, and even more to straighten his legs and pretend to stand. It was like the universe was taunting him, making him earn the right to stand on his own legs and not drift aimlessly in the vast expanse of time.

“ **Sans?** ” he gently called. “ **Sans, can you hear me?** ” Yet his words fell on deaf ears as the other still quaked and shook. The voice of Dr Alphys drifted down the way and Gaster watched as she rushed forward, phasing through his body. “ **Alphys?** ”

She must have said something, but to Gaster, it was muffled and blurred, as if he’d known the words once before, but they’d been scrubbed away. Feeling more out of place than a child at a 21st birthday party, he took a step back and waited, not even caring that he was hovering over the core again.

 

They spoke in their blurred language long enough for Gaster to get bored of it. He crossed his legs and leant on his palm, watching as the two scientists spoke about something. There were gestures with hands, but any signs, common or his own creation, seemed to blur before him, as if censored by MTT during the morning kids segments.

 

This, in fact, made Gaster decide that the universe is kind of an asshole.

 

When their conversation stopped and Alphys took Sans over her shoulder, leading her back into Hotlands, Gaster followed them. 

What else was there to do, stuck in the same world as everyone else, but without them knowing? Any conversation making its way over to him was muffled and warped, which was a major bummer. Gossiping and spreading rumours is hard if you can’t understand a single word people say and from that conversation, trying to decipher a “Sanurshps” was useless.

With a silent sigh, Gaster prayed he could read still.

  
  


This prayer was incinerated, just like his body in the core, when he got back to Alphys’ lab. On the walls were anime posters and scientific blueprints, neither of which made sense. The anime posters hadn’t changed, from what Gaster knew, but the scale drawings and complex notes were now a haze, as if the ink had been washed away.

This cemented the fact that the universe was, in fact, an asshole.

Sans and Alphys droned, sounding panicked and fearful, while Gaster merely stared at a Mew Mew Kissy Cutie poster, trying to decipher the script on the side and deduce what the practicality of a magic staff and tiny dress was. He was halfway through figuring out an optimal colour palette for Mew Mew if she lived in Waterfall when there was a thunderous crack that rang through his skull. The world vanished for a moment, and only the black void stretched out before him.  **“Okay... And that means?”**

 

_ Turn around. _

 

The voice was familiar, like he’d heard it before, but when he turned to see who it was, there was nobody. Instead, there were two framed pictures, almost identical. The one on the left had only Alphys and Sans in it, while the second had Alphys, Sans, and Asgore. Hovering a hand over the left frame, Alphys’ voice droned and Sans’ copied, most likely spouting science nonsense if Gaster knew them well enough. The other window had the same drones, but with Asgore’s voice coming through too.

 

_ They’re the same. _

 

As much as Gaster hated listening to the disembodied voices of children he’d known once in the past, he had to agree with it. Holding his hands over both frames, they spoke with the same drone. The only difference was that Asgore filled in the empty gaps from the left image.

“ **But why? Is this just interdimensional space television created to pass the time in the endless abyss?”** Gaster asked, turning away from the images to try and find the voice again. There was no answer, just silence, and Gaster sighed.

Looks like he had some exploring to do.

  
  


From his brief time fiddling in the everstretching darkness of oblivion and death, Gaster found some amusing tidbits about the universe.

For one, the multiverse theory was real.

Two, he was a total idiot in every multiverse known to the void and had thrown himself into the core.

Thirdly, this had spawned hundreds upon thousands of alternate universes which he had explored, only to discover that he existed in exactly 0% of them. It wasn’t even that he’d died. When he and Sans had worked together, they agreed that his death would result in a pair of green hotpants being stapled to the laboratory doors. In every timeline he’d bothered to visit, there were no hotpants, and his blueprints were missing from their places on the walls. 

 

Eventually he’d come to the conclusion that if you tried to remove yourself from enough timelines, the universe would kick you out of it earlier just to make the job easier. It was the only logical answer, after all. Having your presence removed from everyone’s memory took up less of the universe’s allocated resources, which then permitted it to create more cute puppies and cat videos for the internet. While this was something Gaster could appreciate, he couldn’t help but be irritated due to the fact that he, y’know, didn’t exist anymore. It was boring to not exist, and to only hear garbled speech got old after the first week. The only thing that didn’t mess up in its way across the dark abyss was Alphys’ cartoons, which is why Gaster found himself standing beside the scientist, watching as some girl in a glowing dress delivered some motivational speech.

 

“ **Oh please,** ” he moaned in annoyance. “ **That attack wouldn’t work, the physical matter carried in that Starlight Beam wouldn’t be able to sustain itself over such a distance without some falloff, making it weaker!** ” He thrust a hand out in anger but nobody took notice, leading him to sigh and lean on the couch with annoyance, unnoticed by Alphys. The privilege of standing had been given now, and it was starting to take its toll as Gaster noticed, watching as his legs slowly began to drip and melt into a puddle beneath him. He cursed, and the universe trembled, scolding him. Peeling himself away from the couch, Gaster turned to look at the void stretching behind him, watching as all the frames floated about messily, no order or reason given. At the end of the darkness was a grey door, something that the universe permitted after seven long years, stretching across the timelines. He watched it for a moment, bored and about to turn back to the anime when the door handle rattled. Gaster sighed, waving a hand and letting the world solidify, picture frames vanishing and grey walls taking their place. Alphys’ home disintegrated, and Gaster’s own room took its place.

The only problem he had now, in all of the timelines where he existed and didn’t, was that nobody had the courtesy to knock.

 

He took a breath and sighed as his legs seemed to melt more, taking him closer to the floor. He hunched his shoulders and watched as the door slowly creaked open. A small human entered, and he recognized it from other timelines. Frisk.

They entered, approaching him with wonder in their eyes. They almost reached out to touch him, but Gaster watched as they drew back and circled instead before finally deciding to head back to the door. It slammed shut and all the picture frames that had vanished snapped back to reality, clattering on the floor noisily.

Gaster groaned.

**“Damn kids.”**


End file.
